ENCINITAS  This weekend, thousands of aspiring comic artists are in San Diego learning how to market their work at Comic-Con International. But one veteran local artist won’t be there to share his tips. Jim Whiting, 87, has deadlines to meet.

The Encinitas cartoonist said he gets up as early as 4:30 a.m. some days to head into his home studio to work on commissions for numerous book, online, advertising and commercial clients. Typically, he works six to seven hours a day, seven days a week.

“Sometimes I take it easy on Saturdays if there’s a good garage sale around the neighborhood,” he said.

Whiting sold his first cartoon to VETS magazine in 1947 for $10 and since then has published more than 14,750 others. Along the way he’s been an art teacher, radio morning show host and magician, but his heart is in art.

Whiting grew up on Superman and Tarzan comic books in Watkins Glen, N.Y. Teachers recognized artistic talent in his grade-school doodling and by the time he graduated from high school, he had illustrated both his high school paper and a grass roots periodical he created with a friend. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he married his high school sweetheart Bernita (they’ll mark their 68th anniversary in November), gathered up some of his best cartoons and asked for a meeting with New Yorker magazine cartoonist Sam Cobean, who also lived in Watkins Glen. The famed panel artist encouraged Whiting to go to art school and Whiting said that was all the encouragement he needed.

“I loved to draw and it seemed like a great way to earn a living,” he said.

In the 1950s, Whiting would catch a train to New York City every week, portfolio in hand, to sell his hand-drawn single-panel comics (known in the industry as “gags”) to magazine editors. Sometimes the cost of the train fare and lunch would far exceed whatever he earned. But before long, his work was steadily appearing in publications such as The Saturday Evening Post, Look, Argosy, Collier’s and The New Yorker.

Whiting said he got the ideas for his gags by “turning over things in my head that I’d read about or any visual stimulus that I’d seen each day.” In those days, there were also professional gag writers who wrote down ideas for cartoons on index cards and mailed them in bulk to cartoonists. Whiting worked with pen and ink at a wooden drafting table he inherited from Cobean, who was killed in a car accident in 1951 at the age of 38. He still uses the table today, though his tools now include a scanner and Photoshop software.

Greg Evans, another North County resident who created and draws the syndicated comic strip “Luann,” said he has great admiration for Whiting’s creativity.

“Jim’s a very prolific gag cartoonist and draws in the classic Saturday Evening Post/New Yorker style,” Evans said. “Gag cartooning is hard because, unlike comic strips, there’s no regular cast of characters to generate jokes. When Charlie Brown fails, again, to kick the football, we laugh because we know him. Gag cartoonists have to rely only on the humor of each new situation, so they’re endlessly reinventing the wheel. Jim mastered this difficult art.”

Eventually, Whiting grabbed the golden ring of cartooning. He drew the syndicated comics “Li’l Ones,” “Wee Women” and “AD-LIBS” for a combined 15 years. He also had a solid business designing artwork for advertising and commercial clients.

But the rise of television in the 1950s meant a decline in magazines, so in 1956, the father of five began supplementing the family income as the “Early Worm,” a morning show radio host serving Ithaca and surrounding cities. In 1984, the Whitings sought out a warmer climate and moved to North County, where Bernita got a job as the Southern California liaison for Cornell University, and later the University Club director at UC San Diego.

Whiting said moving to Southern California proved harder than anticipated. He missed the radio job and it took nearly two years to re-establish his cartooning business. But he found a solid support network by launching the Southern California Cartoonists Society. Evans was an early member.

“Jim was president, promoter, speaker-getter and venue-provider for 15 years,” Evans said. “Anyone interested in cartooning was welcome. At its peak in the ‘90s, we had big meetings of 60 people ... I think it was Jim’s personal charm and enthusiasm that made it such a huge success.”

These days, Whiting keeps track of his commissions with a whiteboard on his studio wall. The Internet has brought him clients from all over the world. He’s been contributing cartoons for 14 years to the website Grammar Mechanics and for 25 years to ComputerEdge magazine. This spring, he published a book of animal jokes and gags with author Jane Simon, and he drew 115 cartoons for a magic-themed comedy book by Ellen Friedman that will come out later this year.

The magic book is a particular favorite for Whiting because he’s been an amateur magician since the age of 8. Just last week, he mixed work and pleasure by performing a rope trick at a panel discussion on comic art at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. The center’s museum is hosting “Art Illustrated: Celebrating Comic Art,” an exhibit of more than 250 pieces of artwork by leading comic artists from the past 80 years, including Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein and Evans. Whiting said he’s proud to have eight pieces in the exhibit, which runs through July 28.

Whiting said he enjoys sharing his passion for cartooning with others, especially children who have the same doodling bug he had as a boy.